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Paper short abstract

How to research without harming? Based on an ethnography with transmasculine people in Brazil, this paper argues that care functions as an ethico-political method that reshapes fieldwork, redirecting research away from surveillance-prone sites and opening new ethnographic and analytical horizons.

Paper long abstract

What is the researcher’s responsibility when their presence negatively affects the study group’s everyday lives? This question emerged at the beginning of the fieldwork for my ethnography, which examines the care trajectories of trans men and transmasculine people in Brazil through relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Grounded in feminist and care studies, this research addresses ethical and methodological challenges of conducting research in contexts marked by vulnerability and polarization, proposing care not merely as an analytical lens but as a praxis of ethnographic practice. Healthcare services are highly tensioned environments for trans people, historically shaped by rigid clinical protocols and pathologizing practices. Upon entering the field, two initially planned methodological strategies had to be reconsidered. The observation of clinical consultations was abandoned after dialogues with patients and professionals, as an external gaze was perceived as an additional layer of surveillance that could negatively affect care. Likewise, participation in support groups for trans youth was suspended, since in a polarized social context these groups operate as protected spaces whose dynamics could be disrupted by the researcher’s presence. As a result, ethnographic observation was redirected to reception and waiting rooms. Treated as marginal, these spaces proved analytically productive as the first point of contact with the healthcare system, where names are recorded and demands and solutions are negotiated. I argue that ethnography in sensitive fields requires continuous methodological reassessment. In this sense, care functions as an ethico-political tool guiding research decisions, allowing for the emergence of new and unexpected methodological horizons.